Nalbandian has a great gift of turning defence into attack

Shanghai: As fishermen’s tales go, this one would take some swallowing at David Nalbandian’s local haunts in Cordoba. Their man becomes the first Argentinian to win the Masters Cup, interrupting Roger Federer’s streak of 24 consecutive final victories. A match in which he comes from two sets down, surrenders a 4-0 lead in the fifth set, survives Federer serving for the match and wins the concluding tie-break with the stadium reverberating to chants for his opponent. Then he collects his ?800,000 prize-money, climbs into a sparkling silver Mercedes and rides off into the Shanghai sunset. That is not the way it was supposed to happen.

Nalbandian was heading off on a fishing expedition with friends ten days ago before he got the call to jump on a plane to China, the twelfth-best player asked to join a tournament that had been cut off at the knees by injuries, accidents and pregnancies. To win the event was not part of the deal.

But the minute this gifted Argentinian arrived here, he became the epitome of the dark horse on a medium-fast paced court that felt as if it had been made to his specific design, his great gift of turning defence into attack, his wonderful eye, and his cunning movement.

For Federer, it is all difficult to swallow. A man grown accustomed to winning almost every tournament he enters came to this one the two-time defending champion not sure if he could last one match, let alone five. He won his semi-final 6-0, 6-0, but taking the last steps on the right ankle he hurt so badly six weeks ago proved a burden too immense.

Nalbandian had made Federer work for every point he earned in the first two sets. Indeed, the Argentinian had three points to snatch the second set tie-break, one from which you could not avert your gaze for fear of missing something incredible. Instead of clinching it 13-11, releasing him to surge through in straight sets, the toll taken on Federer’s courageous decision to come here, all the appearances, fanfests and the adulation, rendered him immobile.

He served his first two double faults in the first game of the third set and by the end of the fourth, he could not win a point to save his life. Nalbandian’s level rarely changed the whole four hours and 36 minutes of the match as he clubbed his backhands down the line, used the drop shot to bruising effect, returned audaciously and attacked with a radar’s precision. Only when he trailed 4-0, 30-0 in the final set, staring a potential humiliation in the face, did Federer’s instincts take over.

It was the equivalent of Mr Nice Guy lashing out. What was the point of going down ingloriously, when gloriously was a far more attractive proposition? And so Federer clawed his way back, one pained step at a time, until he was not only level but ahead, serving for the match at 6-5. It was an extraordinary effort but it was not enough, for Nalbandian, the former Wimbledon finalist, stuck tenaciously to his guns, fashioning another drop shot and then thumping a backhand winner to take it into the tie-break that he claimed 7-3.

The only other time in his career that Nalbandian had fought back from such peril had been on Wimbledon Centre Court in the middle Saturday this year, when a precocious kid called Andy Murray played two sets of such splendour the crowd were thinking they had witnessed a mirage. The force of Nalbandian’s comeback that day still hurts the Scot, much as the pained look on Federer’s face was evidence of how much he hates to lose.

“There was big, big fatigue,” he said. “The leg was killing me. “What I have achieved here this week is one of my greatest results in all the circumstances. I am proud of the way it has turned out, I didn’t believe I could come this far, so on the human side, this is a really big tournament for me.”

For Nalbandian, it is proof, if it were needed, that there is a Grand Slam champion lurking within. Ivan Ljubicic had said before their round robin meeting that Nalbandian never won the big matches, so why should their meeting be any different? Nalbandian brushed aside the Croat, won his semi-final in straight sets and Sunday landed the biggest catch of his life.